Abstract: The empirical literature on tax-induced migration (TIM) primarily focused on estimating the average elasticity of migration to interregional tax differentials but ignores the potential effect of the variations around this average. This paper extends the work of Moretti and Wilson (Am Econ Rev 107:1858–1903, 2017) and finds salient nonlinearity in the TIM of star scientists between 1977 and 2010. The results suggest that differences in personal income tax and research and development (R & D) tax credits between two states generate nonlinear impacts on migration; there is evidence of an important inertia range in which the differences generate little impact on migration. In contrast, the corporate income tax has approximately linear effects and investment tax credit has consistent effects only when the destination state initially has higher credits than the origin state. As different taxes or tax credits have distinctive nonlinear effects on migration, decision makers are cautioned of using average elasticities of TIM in policy making.PubDate: 2019-03-21

Abstract: Foreclosures have negative impacts not just on homeowners, but also on neighboring properties. Due to the heterogeneous characteristics of the housing market, different neighborhoods can be impacted differently by foreclosures. This study focuses on the varying impacts of foreclosures on nearby property values across space. These results can provide insightful directions for decision makers to identify places in greatest need. A semi-parametric approach is applied to allow estimates varying over space. In Chicago, property values most impacted by foreclosures are in the south where the vacancy rate and crime occurrences are high and incomes are low. The spatial variation in impacts is wider for homes priced at the 10th quantile than at the 90th quantile. Moreover, the impacts are generally larger for home prices at the 10th quantile than at the 90th quantile, but the differences are not uniform across space.PubDate: 2019-03-20

Abstract: This research examines the relationship between urban polycentric spatial structure and driving. We identified 46 employment sub-centers in the Los Angeles Combined Statistical Area and calculated access to jobs that are within and beyond these sub-centers. To address potential endogeneity problems, we use access to historically important places and transportation infrastructure in the early twentieth century as instrumental variables for job accessibility indices. Our Two-stage Tobit models show that access to jobs is negatively associated with household vehicle miles traveled in this region. Among various accessibility measures, access to jobs outside sub-centers has the largest elasticity (− 0.155). We examine the location of places in the top quintile of access to non-centered jobs and find that those locations are often inner ring suburban developments, near the core of the urban area and not far from sub-centers, suggesting that strategies of infill development that fill in the gaps between sub-centers, rather than focusing on already accessible downtowns and large sub-centers, may be the best land use approach to reduce VMT.PubDate: 2019-03-19

Abstract: This paper studies the effects of government-led skill formation on environmental quality and the skilled–unskilled wage gap through the three-sector general equilibrium approach. The process of skill formation is divided into two periods. In the basic model, an increase in the subsidy on skill formation can improve the environment in both periods, but may widen or narrow down the wage gap, depending on the relative capital intensities of the urban sectors, and on the environmental dependence of the rural sector. In the presence of urban unemployment, the main results of the basic model still more or less hold. This paper suggests that, although the subsidy on skill formation does not necessarily reduce wage inequality, it does serve as an effective policy to improve environmental quality.PubDate: 2019-03-16

Abstract: This paper investigates club convergence in income per capita of 329 prefecture-level city regions in China over a period of 1990 to 2014. A nonlinear time-varying factor model is adopted to examine convergence trends as the model allows for transitional heterogeneity and divergence from the actual growth path. The study further explores the driving forces of convergence clubs using an ordered response model. Four convergence clubs are identified, showing no geographic regularity in club member locations. The highest income club and the lowest income club tend to converge strongly, whereas two middle-income clubs converge weakly. The findings indicate that initial conditions, sectorial characteristics, preferential development policy, general government spending, network effect, spatial effect, and the role of globalization are the significant factors responsible for the formation of club convergence in China.PubDate: 2019-02-08

Abstract: This paper examines the long-run effects of natural disasters on population density growth across US counties during the period of 1960–2000. Detailed data for measuring the number and intensity of three types of major natural disasters (earthquake, tornado, and hurricane) are collected and incorporated into the empirical models. We do not find any significant adverse long-run growth effects of natural disasters. Weak evidence of minor tornadoes being positively correlated to growth is provided. Results also indicate that disasters have negligible indirect effects on county population density growth through impacting the county characteristics.PubDate: 2019-02-01

Abstract: There is a growing consensus that, as part of China’s “New Normal”, economic growth will slow permanently. Given China’s geographic diversity, the slowdown will likely have differential effects on China’s provinces which will interact with existing disparities. We investigate whether confining the initial effect of an aggregate shock to one of three regions (coast, centre and west) affects the inter-provincial distribution of its effects over time. We use two alternative models: a restricted VAR model of 28 provinces and three regions and a sequence of 28 four-equation VAR models. We find that the two methods give remarkably similar results—a shock to a particular region’s output has its main effects on the provinces in that region, although this differs over time and across regions. A shock which originates in the coastal region affects mainly the coastal provinces in both the short and long runs so that a growth reduction is likely to ameliorate existing inter-provincial disparities. However, there is more diffusion of the effects of a central shock, particularly in the long run. A shock to the western region also generates spillover effects in the long run although these are to the coastal provinces so that a growth slowdown will tend to reduce existing disparities.PubDate: 2019-02-01

Abstract: Since 2005, the Korean government has relocated national research institutes from the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) to other parts of the nation. The main purpose of this relocation is to ameliorate disparities in population and economic power across regions. However, it turns out that only 27% of researchers in the SMA have actually relocated. This implies that researcher’s preference for a living environment should be reflected in the planning process. Hence, this paper attempts to specify the migration behaviors of researchers by comparing their preferences with those of general workers. Here, regional living environment is represented by a function of two attributes: regional labor market conditions and living environments. The paper shows that regional living environments have a more decisive impact on the migration of researchers, relative to general workers. Also, researchers are found to be slightly more sensitive to regional living environments especially crime than regional labor market conditions. Finally, the paper suggests a policy direction for balanced development among regions in Korea based on the results obtained.PubDate: 2019-02-01

Abstract: This paper studies the efficiency of land taxation in a system of jurisdictions with absentee ownership of land. The government of a jurisdiction exploits absentee owners and overtaxes land. Hence, even if land taxation does not distort the use of land, it distorts the allocation of resources between the private and public goods, creating an efficiency loss. If individuals choose their land ownership by trading it in the asset market, they do not necessarily choose an efficient ownership. The government of a jurisdiction also imposes an absentee owner surcharge, reducing the return to absentee ownership and eliminating absentee ownership. Surcharges thus improve the efficiency of land taxation in the long run.PubDate: 2019-02-01

Abstract: In a recording title system, a landowner faces two risks: the risk of a claim from a previously dispossessed owner and risk of being dispossessed by adverse possession, squatting, or encroachment. In this study, we build a real options model to investigate the issues regarding the optimal statute of limitations. In the absence of any uncertainty, a longer statute of limitations delays land development, and thus a regulator may allow for a more lenient policy of statutory limitations for land located in the suburb than in the city center. At any given location, greater uncertainty in urban rents will cause a landowner to wait longer. Anticipating this outcome, the regulator should shorten the statute of limitations to increase the likelihood for the current owner to retain title.PubDate: 2019-02-01

Abstract: Empirical evidence has confirmed that the locational agglomeration of firms is associated with productivity benefits. Several competing explanations have been proposed for this association: agglomeration externalities effect, sorting effect and selection effect. This work builds on these studies and seeks to make four contributions by using a firm-level dataset on China’s manufacturing industries over the 1999–2007 period. First, it points out that this stand of literature pays insufficient attention to the possibility of adverse sorting. Second, agglomeration externalities have been decomposed to two constituting parts: inter- and intra-industry, which play different roles in the process of sorting and agglomeration. Third, this paper also points out the need to pay attention to firm heterogeneity, in terms of market orientation and ownership type. Finally, the complex role of government policies has been also examined. Econometric results support our hypotheses.PubDate: 2019-02-01

Abstract: We estimate the long-run causal effect of information technology, i.e., Internet and powerful computers, as measured by the adoption of teleworking, on average commuting distance within professions in the Netherlands. We employ data for 2 years—1996 when information technology was hardly adopted and 2010 when information technology was widely used in a wide range of professions. Variation in information technology adoption over time and between professions allows us to infer the causal effect of interest using difference-in-differences techniques combined with propensity score matching. Our results show that the long-run causal effect of information technology on commuting distance is too small to be identified and likely to be absent. This suggests that, contrary to some assertions, the advent of information technology did not have a profound impact on the spatial structure of the labor market.PubDate: 2019-02-01

Abstract: This study investigates the localization of collaboration in knowledge creation by using data on Japanese patent applications. Applying distance-based methods, we obtained the following results. First, collaborations are significantly localized at the 5% level with a localization range of approximately 100 km. Second, the localization of collaboration is observed in most technologies. Third, the extent of localization was stable from 1986 to 2005 despite extensive developments in information and communications technology that facilitate communication between remote organizations. Fourth, the extent of localization is substantially greater in inter-firm collaborations than in intra-firm collaborations. Furthermore, in inter-firm collaborations, the extent of localization is greater in collaborations with small firms. This result suggests that geographic proximity mitigates the firm-border effects on collaborations, especially for small firms.PubDate: 2019-02-01

Abstract: This paper examines the location choice of cultural producers when cities differ in housing supply and income demographics. We develop a two-region spatial model containing three types of industries: a constant returns to scale traditional sector, a modern sector with external scale economies and a monopolistically competitive cultural sector. The model is initially analyzed when workers supply labor inelastically to their respective industry. Both integration and segregation are never a stable equilibrium, and the conditions for the stability of both concentrated and partially interior equilibrium are solved for. The model is extended to allow for cultural producers to divide their time between cultural production and moonlighting in the traditional sector, in order to smooth their income. Under this extension, there is an equilibrium where a share of cultural producers live isolated from a larger integrated market. We also identify an equilibrium where one region is able to sustain full-time cultural producers, while in the opposite region cultural producers must moonlight in the traditional sector. Under partially interior equilibria, the number of varieties of the cultural good is always larger in the region with the greater supply of housing.PubDate: 2019-02-01

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to study the role of spatial agglomeration economies as drivers of firm exit in France over the period 2009–2013 by focusing on two regional variables (local financial development and local specialization). The spatial autocorrelation detected in the data leads us to apply spatial econometric techniques (Spatial Dynamic Panel models and spatial GMM) that permit us to control the estimation of spatial spillover effects. Our results show that firm exit is significantly influenced by positive spatial autocorrelation. Therefore, locations with high exit rates tend to be surrounded by similar ones. However, this phenomenon differs according to the period. In addition, we find that greater local financial development reduces the exit rate in a department, whereas local specialization seems not to exert any effect.PubDate: 2019-02-01

Abstract: This study investigates college-bound migration flow in Japan using national-scale data from 2003 to 2014. The results, through a zero-inflated count data model regression, show the influence of academic field, network, and gender, as well as geographic and socioeconomic determinants, on college-bound migration, wherein such determinants are intertwined. Migration stocks increase the quantity of college-bound migration. Although, as expected, the migration ratios higher for natural sciences and for male students, gender differences were not found in the humanities and science, and female engineering students have a higher tendency to migrate. The total tendency of field effect is similar to the lower selectivity categories and different from the upper categories. Regional differences were also identified in relation to academic field and selectivity: 10 prefectures showed positive net migration (mainly from local to center) in all fields combined while in medicine, there were 28 prefectures in the opposite direction (mainly from center to local). Further, there are more outbound students for selective institutions in the western and metropolitan areas than in northeastern Japan. These results suggest that, to understand college-bound migration, there is a need to account for the intertwined effects of academic fields.PubDate: 2019-01-28

Abstract: The progress in medical resources and technologies has played an important role in improving people’s health. Various indicators can be used to measure the health level of a country. The mortality rate is a clinical result of health and medical sectors that quantitatively displays the state or change in health levels. The effectiveness of medical resources can be quantitatively determined with the changes in mortality rate and can represent the health level of a region. In this study, 16 cities and provinces in Korea for the years from 2001 to 2014 are set as spatial and temporal scopes. Doctors, medical personnel, specialists, and number of operations are introduced as human medical resources. The number of hospital beds and number of medical facilities represent physical resources, while the high-end medical equipment represents technical advancements. The result from panel analyses indicated that all medical resources considered in this study reduce age-standardized mortality rate, with medical facilities having the greatest influence, followed by specialists, then by high-end medical equipment. These results can be interpreted to suggest that medical resources and regional economic characteristics compositely have reducing effect on mortality rate.PubDate: 2019-01-24

Abstract: We analyze the main characteristics that help explain the regional distribution of manufacturing foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mexico. Our main findings indicate the presence of a positive spatial relationship among states’ FDI which, combined with the zero effect found for the market potential variable, points to the presence of complex vertical FDI. We consider that this is consistent with the fact that just over a third of manufacturing FDI in the country is located in the automotive sector. Moreover, we find positive direct and indirect effects of human capital, agglomeration, and states’ fiscal margins. Based on the results of this research, attraction of FDI should be considered in a regional context and not only from a local perspective.PubDate: 2019-01-23

Abstract: Urban inequality analysis in developed countries has mainly focused in large and global cities; less research has been done on second-rank cities. This study aims to fill this research gap, analysing the explaining factors of wage inequality in Catalonian second-rank cities. Catalonian polycentric urban system may be considered as representative of the polycentric and less concentrated European urban system. We use a comprehensive data set for 41 cities in 2001 and 2011 to study the main determinants of wage inequality and of its change. Our results point to the distribution of skills and the average wage income as the main explaining factors.PubDate: 2019-01-22

Abstract: This work analyses the effect of the institutional design of public spending on technical efficiency. The model controls for technical efficiency using institutional variables for earmarked and autonomous revenues and assesses them using two stochastic frontier models. The main findings show that expenditures by Mexican municipalities, regardless of type, reduce the technical efficiency of local production. Results support the Brennan–Buchanan collusion hypothesis that decentralization generates an increase in government spending, but it does not translate to higher social welfare.PubDate: 2019-01-02